A contractor manages bridge hardware so I am missing details. They set it up. I troubleshoot and use the data.

AIS is connected to a serial-to-ethernet converter. That allows me to get the AIS stream over TCP/IP. I wrote an application to consume AIS and do what they wanted with it.

The serial-to-ethernet converters are the magic ingredient. It allowed us to have tracking and telemetry regardless of terrestrial VHF stations in the area. The original setup also provided a feed from Transas but we stopped using it. We also use a private AIS VHF recorder as a backup source of AIS messages. We used that a lot more before Starlink due to terrestrial blockage of VSAT links. The backup source was a good compliment to the primary. They had the most infra in areas that were blocked most often.